It is a business that owners Peter and Nikki Sullivan are proud to say is 'for the birds'.

The husband and wife are avid birdwatchers and beach combers. When the couple retired to a small farm in Bowdoinham 10 years ago, they combined their passions to create the Lobster Buoy Birdhouse Co. As the name suggests, they build birdhouses in the shape of lobster buoys.

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The birdhouses are handmade. While the Sullivans believe they build an attractive birdhouse, first and foremost, they tout the function.

"We did research to figure out exactly what size the cavity should be inside the lobster buoy so that it would attract birds and how high the hole should be," said Nikki Sullivan.

Each birdhouse begins as a single block of scrap cedar from a mill in northern Maine. By the time Peter Sullivan is finished carving that wood, very little is left. Besides the birdhouse, he will also use the wood to make a lobster buoy suet feeder. Remaining scraps are used to make decorative fish and even smaller buoys.

"People enjoy that, too," Peter Sullivan said. "At shows, we show them what we make out of one piece of wood. They like it."

The Sullivans

said they don't measure success in how many they make, rather in how much they still enjoy making them.